Windows 10: It’s Like Riding a Bike (Premium)

In June 2021, Microsoft announced Windows 11 with the type of virtual event that still felt weird in that not-quite post-pandemic world. But these are the moments I live for: My writing career started 30 years ago, it’s always centered on Windows and Microsoft, and I’ve written books about every (major) Windows release since 1995. And in keeping with the mindset that led to the SuperSite for Windows—it’s the future of Windows … today!–I immediately switched to Windows 11, leaving Windows 10 behind so that I could immerse myself in this new system.

This was pragmatic: I knew I’d be writing a book about Windows 11—the Windows 11 Field Guide, which has since ballooned to about 1100 pages—and that it’s not possible to fully understand something unless you’re immersed in it. I don’t regret that decision per se, but as was the case with other less well-received Windows versions in the past—Windows Millennium Edition, Vista, and Windows 8—much of the rest of the world didn’t share my enthusiasm for change. Today, over two and a half years into Windows 11’s life cycle, roughly two-thirds of all Windows users, some several hundred million people, are still using Windows 10.

As is so often the case, the reasons for this are many. Some of it is Microsoft’s fault, of course: The Windows 11 hardware requirements, which in effect obsolete anything older than a PC with an 8th Gen Intel Core processor (or equivalent from AMD or Qualcomm), feel arbitrary because they are arbitrary, and we shouldn’t be surprised that this strategy cast a weird suspicious shadow over the product. And some of it is the same slow-boil business inertia that’s dogged Windows for decades, with Windows 10 replacing Windows 7 as the version on which many organizations have stuck. After all, it’s not wise to jump out of a perfectly working airplane.

In enthusiast circles, Windows 11 has likewise met a stubborn resistance, also for many reasons. We’re technical enough to work around Microsoft’s hardware restrictions—and Microsoft, to its credit, is smart enough to let us do so, without ramification—but initial concerns about functional regressions tied to the simpler new Windows 11 user interface have since given way to deeper worries about enshittification. And this one is a real problem: In addition to the forced Microsoft account (MSA) and Microsoft Edge usage, OneDrive in Windows 11 has jumped the shark by harassing users into using folder backup and then silently enabling this feature when the offer is declined. This isn’t just bad design, it’s malicious, unethical, and anti-customer.

I’ve spent much of the past few years documenting the problems with Windows 11 and the workarounds when they’re available. But I’ve also been pushed to the edge in ways that are unprecedented, even compared to the dark days of Windows 8. I stopped using OneDrive for my day-to-day work and switched to the superior and nag-free Google Drive. And I even stopped using Microsoft Word because it wouldn’t stop nagging me to back up my files in, wait for it, OneDrive. What’s next? Am I going to replace Windows?

The answer to that question is an emphatic no, though my recent purchase of an M3-based MacBook Air has probably raised some eyebrows. It shouldn’t, not really: I’ve had at least one current Mac in-house since 2001, most for testing and comparison purposes, and I’ve always felt strongly about testing alternatives to the software, hardware, and other products and services on which I rely. I’m just as interested in Linux and ChromeOS, and I’ve been testing both for as long as they’ve been available.

But it is fair to say that the enshittification of Windows 11 has triggered some soul-searching. I can easily imagine alternate histories in which I went in different directions, and I can likewise see a future in which my personal setup is dramatically different from what I do today. And so the desire, or need, to explore alternatives, figure out some kind of Plan B, has definitely taken on a new urgency. It’s an urgency that’s shared, from what I can tell, by many of you as well. Uncertainty around AI in general, Copilot specifically, and the inane, irresponsible, and immature behavior we see in the Windows organization at Microsoft don’t inspire confidence either. We live in interesting times.

Laying awake in bed this morning and staring at a ceiling I couldn’t quite see, it suddenly occurred to me that there is an out, an escape hatch, that I’d not yet considered. This will be obvious to many if not most of you, because it’s the same out you’ve chosen as well. It’s called Windows 10. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.

I cannot—and won’t—switch back to Windows 10, for so many reasons. But in ignoring Windows 10 for the past few years, I feel like I’ve lost touch with the mainstream experience that most have with my favorite desktop computing platform. And so, at the very least, I figured it was time to reacquaint myself with this system, an old friend of sorts that was originally created by a team of people I liked and respected because they seemed to have the best interests of the platform and its users in mind. That turned out to not be the full story, of course. And the downward spiral in quality that accelerated in Windows 11 did start with Windows 10. But perhaps there are benefits to rewinding the clock a bit.

Also, Microsoft is updating Windows 10 again, after pledging it will not do so. This is also a form of enshittification: Many customers who stuck with Windows 10 did so specifically so they could get off of, or not need to experience, the Windows 11 update roller coaster. But Microsoft’s need to spread AI to the world faster than COVID upended that plan, and now Windows 10 is being updated. Hell, it even gets Week D preview updates, just like Windows 11. What new is old again. Or something.

Anyway, consumed by this idea, I got out of bed early, walked into my office, turned on the lights, and started rifling through the bins in the shelving units, looking for a suitable computer on which to install and maintain Windows 10. I settled on what I feel is a fairly ideal PC, a Surface Book 2 that’s powered by an 8th Gen Intel Core processor, an NVIDIA dGPU, 16 GB of RAM, and a surprisingly (and unnecessarily) voluminous 1 TB SSD.

I brought it and a bag of USB flash drives out to the living room, set it up on one of the folding tables we keep there, plugged it in—the battery was dead, though I had updated it and my other PCs before leaving for Mexico in early February—and turned it on. After a couple of tries—dead PCs often seem to boot into the Windows lock screen and then turn off for some reason—I signed in, Googled install Windows 10, and then downloaded and installed the Media Creation Tool, which I used to create a fresh, up-to-date Windows 10 installation disk.

It took me over two and a half hours to create the installation disk, clean install Windows 10, update the system (software updates, drivers, etc.) with Windows Update, update the apps with the Microsoft Store, install Terminal, install all my apps with my automated winget (Windows Package Manager) script, and otherwise configure things.

During this time, I rebooted the PC several times, the Surface Book’s batteries charged (but not completely), and it slowly went from slow and curiously unresponsive to more of a normal experience from a performance perspective.

In some ways, it would be nice if could tell you that going back to Windows 10 solves the problems. That using this system is generally “better” and that, while there’s a hard stop here when Windows 10 support ends in about 18 months, that doing through this same exercise yourself will buy you some time and improve your mental health. But it’s more complicated than that. There’s both good and bad.

Windows 10 is in some ways like traveling back in time. The user experience—the design language, I guess—is so out-of-date that it feels retro, and not fresh. I very much prefer the Windows 11 looks, with its curved edges and simpler UI and more modern controls and other interfaces. The Windows 10 user interface is all rectangular and hard-edged, and it hearkens back to Windows Phone, a platform that’s been dead for a full decade. The appearance of live tiles in the Start menu is so vestigial and sad that I quickly deleted all of them, leaving only the All Apps list behind. Which of course makes it look a bit like Windows 2000, and even more dated.

The Settings app is terrible, and speaks to the navigational improvements that came to the version in Windows 11.

File Explorer is … perhaps better, with a more minimal user interface that at least feels faster (by which I mean just app responsiveness, not file operations).

The context menus are almost hilariously old-school, and I actually miss the simplified right-click menu from the Windows 11 Taskbar, and now find the more complete version in Windows 10 to be overly-big, overly-busy, and overburdened by options I will never use.

It’s astonishing how many superfluous UIs there were in the Taskbar by default. Meet Now, off. News and Interests (Widgets), off. Windows Ink, off. Search and Task view, off.

I miss Windows 11 Snap a lot: Windows 10 has a very basic Snap, like that in Windows 8, that lacks Snap Layouts, Snap Assist, Snap Groups, and Snap Suggestions. Ugh.

Microsoft Edge is the same crappy app that dogs us in Windows 11, with the same user-hostile behaviors, including its new vampire-like desire to sync with Chrome’s settings every time it starts up. And its curved UIs, so at home in Windows 11, look jarring in the otherwise boxy Windows 10 UI. But here’s some good news: Windows 10 still includes a working Default apps interface, unlike Windows 11.

The Microsoft Store opened initially in what looked like a Windows 8 app style that was terrible but also briefly nostalgic.

But after (very) slowly updating—and updating and updating—all the in-box apps over a long period of time and through many reboots, a process that changed the app icons in Start from stark black and white designs to more three-dimensional color versions, the Store app itself updated and is now identical to that in Windows 11. It’s a big improvement.

And then there is OneDrive. My new nemesis.

For a while there, I complained that there were three different versions of OneDrive in Windows 11, because there were, but also because it was never clear which one you were going to get. This issued was finally resolved sometime around the release of Windows 11 version 23H2, and I believe we’re all on the same version now. The newest version. But not Windows 10: This system is (at least for now) still stuck on the older of those three versions, and it still has the old school desktop UI. This gave me some hope. Perhaps it wouldn’t harass me to use folder backup.

Oh, Paul. When will you learn?

OneDrive almost immediately harassed me to use folder backup. And kudos to Microsoft, it did so in a way that is unique from all the harassment I receive in Windows 11. Seriously, golf clap.

But OneDrive does what OneDrive does: It silently enabled folder backup, with warning or notification. Just like it does in Windows 11. Oh, f#$k you, Microsoft. That is not OK. It’s never OK. This feature was off, and I checked repeatedly to ensure that was the case. And then, suddenly, it was on. God damn it.

One thing I haven’t seen—for some reason—is Copilot. As I write this, the system is fully up-to-date, and I even installed this past week’s Week D cumulative update preview. But Copilot has yet to rear its ugly, Edge-rendered head. Perhaps this will simply happen over time. I’ve also not (yet) been offered the Windows 11 upgrade. I will be: I installed the PC Health Check app and ensured that this Surface Book is compatible. So that’s coming.

In the end, there’s both good and bad here. As noted, I find the user interface to be old-fashioned, and I even miss the centered Taskbar icons, but there’s also a stark minimalism that I sort of appreciate. All my apps work, of course, and work normally. Google Drive is syncing my documents. The performance seems normal, and I have no security worries.

But the OneDrive behavior is troubling for all the same reasons, and it’s almost a PTSD thing for me now. I know that if used Word, that would harass me as well, but I’ve stuck with LibreOffice Writer. I guess I can say that it solves some problems, but not others. Maybe this should have been obvious. I don’t know.

I wonder if the Windows 10 Field Guide, which I essentially abandoned when I shifted to the latest update, deserves a once-over, an update to bring it up to speed with the current system. Maybe.

For now, I’ll try to work this PC into my rotation, and we’ll see what happens when/if it gets Copilot and that Windows 11 upgrade offer. You know it’s coming.

More soon? We’ll see.